


Remain Within Your Reign

by Mizzy



Category: Doctor Strange (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Captain America Reverse Big Bang 2019, Genocide, Hook-Up, Incursions (Marvel), M/M, Mindwiping, New Avengers Vol. 3 (2013), Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Unhappy Ending, hickmanvengers, mild body horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-03-07 18:23:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18878716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mizzy/pseuds/Mizzy
Summary: Should they destroy one Earth to save another? That’s the dilemma the Illuminati have right now. Aware of his own past problems with empathy, and in order for Dr. Strange to understand the full implications of the decision they have to make, he decides to visit one of the Earths that might be on the chopping block.Earth-1219 is a world without superheroes, without villains, without knowledge of its own magic. But is it a world worth saving? Strange is about to find the answer in an unexpected place: a little hardware store, where that universe’s Steve Rogers works.[Set between new avengers 2013 #2 and #3.]





	Remain Within Your Reign

**Author's Note:**

  * For [littleblackbow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleblackbow/gifts).



> Artist: [RanaRaeuchle](http://ranaraeuchle.tumblr.com) | [littleblackbow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleblackbow). Embedded within fic, please click to embiggen. It's been such a pleasure to write for such an amazing artist, I'm so lucky! ♥
> 
> Beta: YKWYA, thank you for your last minute help! ♥
> 
> Written for the Captain America Reverse Big Bang 2019.
> 
> This is an experiment, writing two radically different fics for the same piece of art. This is the angsty 616 edition, you can check out the fluffy MCU edition [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18878581).

[ ](https://i.imgur.com/ezS3bLZ.jpg)

The wait for the mind stone to appear is a tense one.

Adding another meeting to the tension is probably a bad idea, but Strange is pretty sure they’re running out of good ideas anyway.

Even the mystical plane is tense with nervous anticipation. Normally when Strange sees people, he can read their current emotional state on their skin like a book, but when he looks at the other members of the Illuminati, they’re just surrounded by dark clouds. A pressure pushing down on all of them.

Strange glances at the door, almost expecting Steve Rogers to burst in on them. As much as they formally want Captain America to be one of the Illuminati, the fact that Reed called this meeting without him speaks volumes.

They all know what Steve’s opinion will be before he even says it.

 _This_ meeting is to discuss what to do about it.

“So we’re agreed,” T’Challa says, firmly. “If the Gauntlet breaks as we suspect it will, and the Captain does not… respect what needs to be done…”

“Then I will wipe his memories,” Strange says.

There’s silence as it sinks in. It’s a simple decision, not an easy one. People too often conflate those words.

“Just of the Gauntlet failing, or the incursions too?” Black Bolt’s voice fills Strange’s mind in the way it always does, but this time it has a whisper of something behind it. Like an accusation.

“Everything,” Stark says, in a whisper that sounds like a knife. The self-loathing on his face is clear. He looks up, his jaw tensing. “We need to make contingency plans. If we’re going to do this, might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb.”

“Resorting to a cliché, Stark? How lazy of you,” Namor says, crossing his arms and scowling. He’s been scowling since they all implicitly agreed that they needed Captain America to wield the gauntlet, once it’s complete.

“Forgive me for finding it a _little_ difficult that I might have to betray my best friend _again,_ ” Stark says, throwing a little of his loathing in Namor’s direction. It slides off Namor like, well, water from a duck. Stark’s reliance on clichés is catching. Stark drums his fingers on the table and can’t meet anyone’s gaze. “Besides, Captain America’s plan still might succeed and then this entire meeting becomes pointless.”

Of course Stark’s the one to want to put his faith in Steve Rogers, but Strange can tell without even his powers to help that the rest of the Illuminati are skeptical. Namor’s skepticism is wound up tight around his anger that he’s not going to be the one to wield the Gauntlet to try and push the next incursion away.

“He won’t understand what we need to do,” Namor says, mouth curling. “Better have that spell ready, Stephen. Captain America would have us die.”

“He’d be looking for a third option,” Stark says softly, but Namor reacts like Stark hasn’t said anything.

“The Black Swan—as far as we can trust her—says the gauntlet will work, and I’m inclined to agree with her, but there is a strong probability it’s a one-time fix,” Reed says. “We must be ready to discover alternatives. We’re the smartest people on this planet. If anyone can do it, we can.”

“Perhaps it is not the _can_ we should be worried about. Perhaps it is the _should_ ,” T’Challa says. “I am not comfortable with the idea that we can choose the fate of a whole universe on behalf of _our_ universe.”

“If we were comfortable with it, this would be a very different endeavor,” Black Bolt thinks.

“For now we need to retire. Think about what our alternatives are and think about the magnitude of what we’re discussing,” Reed says. He’s not looking any of them in the eye. Strange isn’t surprised. No one can really make eye contact, even though they already all know what they’re doing is right.

The universe is already damaged. The wounds are hemorrhaging. The time for band-aids is over. Preventative cure is where medical intervention is at its most effective. The principle applies to this situation. Strange’s mind is already made up. The math is simple.

Two universes are about to collide. One must survive. It’s survival of the fittest. If the other Earth doesn’t have the means to be the one to survive, then they wouldn’t survive the further incursions heading their way.

There is no decision to be made.

“Yeah,” Black Bolt’s mindvoice rumbles, “and some of us will be thinking about it more than others.” He flings a look in Strange’s direction, an expression loaded in undisguisable contempt.

“Don’t listen to him,” Stark says after Black Bolt has left; his voice is soft and his eyes are a turmoil of emotion. “Uh, or whatever the telepathy version of listening is.” People think Stark and Strange alike, cold and ruthless. They’re wrong. Strange had to fight to find the kernel of decency in his soul, and it took him a long time to learn how to actually care about people. Stark always does. Perhaps Strange cares too little sometimes, but Stark cares too much, and it rips them both apart just the same.

“I always listen,” Strange says. He smiles, flat and humorless. “It doesn’t mean I hear.”

“Always with that mystical bullshit,” Stark huffs, and rolls his eyes, but he smirks at Strange. The smirk covers up the haunted expression that still clings to Stark, inescapable from Strange’s perception even if he can hide it from the rest of the world. “See you next meeting?”

Strange hesitates. Apparently the moment of silence speaks volumes. Stark quirks up one querying eyebrow. “Perhaps before,” Strange says. Stark looks curious but doesn’t press for further information, too lost in his own thoughts. Stark doesn’t know it, but his concerns are leaking out of him like ink spreading in water, spilling cracks across Strange’s entwined view of both the physical and the mystical.

His automatic divination doesn’t encompass his own aura; Strange has to deliberately push out his consciousness into the space around him in order to gaze at himself as an outsider might see him. As he leaves the venue, Strange tries to view his own aura as another user of the mystic arts might perceive it.

There doesn’t appear to be much different about him. Even with this cumbersome, weighty knowledge on his shoulders, a burden shared between the Illuminati and no one else so far. His aura shimmers with knowledge and stubbornness and curiosity. None of Tony Stark’s worries in the mix at all.

That’s wrong. They’ve spent hours talking about the threat of the incursions. Starting to make their own separate plans for how to destroy the other Earths, should it come to that. When it comes to survival, the fittest should win the race. Strange intends that their Earth be the fittest. He already knows where to look. He never wanted to ever have to even open the Blood Bible, but needs must.

Strange should be agonizing over the choice, however simple the math is on paper, but he’s not.

And that, more than anything, is a worry.

#

“The crow was a little melodramatic,” Stark says, leaning back in his reclined seat.

The jet is one of Stark’s personal planes. Stark offered it as a place to meet when T’Challa reiterated that the Illuminati were not to leave the Necropolis or the vicinity while they were in his country. It’s designed to provide optimum comfort. The plush seats and perfect temperature make Strange’s skin crawl.

He doesn’t think any of them deserve comfort right now. Not with what they’re thinking about doing in the name of saving lives.

Strange crosses his legs and his cloak relaxes around his shoulder, apparently understanding he wants to appear casual, even though his body has been a combination of tense lines since the reason for T’Challa summoning them to Wakanda was made clear to them. To be honest, Strange has been tense for a while. He thought he would be reassured to know the reason why the universe had started to feel off kilter. Strange has probably never been so wrong in his life before, and that says a lot.

“Could you not have sent an e-mail?” Stark asks, plucking a stray black feather from his shoulder, courtesy of Strange’s messenger crow.

“Do you even read your e-mails?” Strange asks.

“Touché,” Stark allows. He gets up from his seat and over to the bar in the corner, spread with a rainbow of bottles and glasses, and he fixes himself some tonic water, adding ice cubes and lime wedges with a steady hand that Strange is jealous of. “Feel free to help yourself to anything,” Stark says, gesturing at the bar. He looks at Strange with a cool expression. Strange meets his gaze and gets up, stands near to the bar and selects a bottle of beer. Something passes over Stark’s face that ripples, a complex emotion too loaded for a single glance to decipher.

“You do this a lot,” Strange says, reaching for a bottle opener and making gestures as he does, mentally asking the Vishanti for the help he needs even if his own gifts provide the transmogrification spell he needs. Even small magic deserves a thank you.

“Offer hospitality?” Stark quirks an eyebrow at him before heading back over to his seat. “There are worse things I could do, I suppose.” He looks away. “And worse things that we are about to do, I’m afraid.”

“I meant whenever we meet one-on-one. Even in New York, you always make us meet at a bar of some sort,” Strange says, levelly, taking his own drink and walking back to his seat. “It seems an odd choice for two alcoholics.”

“It’s _because_ of our shared particular demon that I do it,” Stark says. He correctly takes Strange’s lack of instant response as the demand for clarity that it is, and he puts his drinks down and leans forward to stare at Strange. “It’s not enough, just to fight the mental demons. I have to constantly challenge them, in case the fight ever makes me complacent.” He shrugs as he leans back again, picking up his tonic water, smirking at the contents, swallowing a mouthful. “The day _anything_ becomes too easy is the day we really become monsters.”

“I see,” Strange says, softly, because they’re not really even talking about their own personal battles with the darkness anymore, and both of them know it.

“Wanda says you often meet her in a bar too,” Stark says, and his tone is a little more judgmental this time. “So maybe I’m not the only one here who likes to torment himself with what he can’t have?”

Strange quirks a smile at him. “Ah, you mean the _bar with no doors_. Well, it’s somewhat of a two-fold decision. Mostly it’s just convenient to meet somewhere people without magic literally cannot get to.”

“Ha,” Stark says, his eyes glinting. Oh, well, if anyone without magic could get in there, it probably would be Tony Stark, Strange thinks.

“The thing about magic is like many other things in life, there’s always a cost. Mortal people aren’t meant to use magic. It changes us.” Strange shrugs. “My appetite is one of my several physical changes. There are only… certain foods I can manage to eat now. And even fewer drinks.” His smile is wry and humorless. “The _bar with no doors_ serves me no alcohol, but the bartender there makes a splendid Luminiferous Painkiller. It tastes and smells a lot better than the version I can transmogrify for myself.”

Stark’s face is creased with curiosity while Strange proffers forwards his beer bottle, and Stark sniffs at it experimentally, and recoils in a way that might be humorous if Strange could find any real laughter left within him.

The threat of the multiverse has soured most of his emotions, stripped away nearly every positive one away to its barest, briefest hint.

“That smells like feet,” Stark offers, wincing in commiseration.

“We all pay a different price for this life.”

“Yeah,” Stark agrees hollowly.

Strange wants to offer words of comfort, to ease the emotional burden on Stark’s soul, but he knows Stark of old—Stark won’t listen to him. He carries his regret like a cloak of his own, nestled so tightly into his identity that he’ll probably never be free of that burden. The path stretching in front of Stark is a cold and lonely one.

The same path stretches in front of all the Illuminati.

“You should see my usual lunch,” Strange offers.

“We probably deserve it,” Stark says, quietly, his gaze disappearing out the window to linger on the view out of the window. Wakanda’s grasslands are beautiful. It’s hard to imagine it evaporating along with the rest of their universe if they fail.

It’s hard, but Strange can picture it, vivid and bitter and bright against his eyelids.

They mustn’t fail. If they have to destroy a thousand Earths to ensure one strong universe survives, so be it.

“I know what we have to do,” Stark says, his voice tight, his eyes roaming as if he’s reading the view, but Strange knows that’s not how Stark’s brain works. Stark is reading the future, a thousand possible futures, and coming up with a thousand terrible conclusions, each worse than the last. “Steve won’t let us do this. He always looks for that plan C, that third option.” He manages a smile, but it’s bitter and sharp. “I’m not looking forward to the expression on his face when he realizes he’s surrounded by monsters.”

Strange’s stomach feels cold. “I know you don’t want to lie to him.”

Stark’s bitter smile sharpens at the edges. “It wouldn’t be the first time.” He shakes his head and looks directly at Strange, always _trying_ to be brave. “Maybe I’m actually looking forward to lying to him this time. Maybe I’m eager for Steve to think of me as anything but a monster.”

Strange sips at his transmogrified beer, the painkiller just as effective as the one from the Bar without Doors, but it tastes little better than battery acid. And at least there’s no alcohol in it. Strange’s mind is clear. The lives they will take from their actions and decisions deserve that much at the very least. “You think this makes us monsters?”

“Is there any other word for being willing to commit genocide, over and over again?” Stark asks archly. “You know what my plan is, I know you do. Years of not being a weapons maker, and here I am, about to do it again on a grander scale than I ever would have had my life not changed course all those years ago. I’m probably about to become the biggest Merchant of Death the multiverse has probably ever seen. _Monster_ is the least of what history will call us.” He shrugs, helplessly. “Trouble is, that’s what the world needs us to be in order for there to _be_ a history in the first place.”

“Maybe the real monsters would be the people sticking their heads in the sand,” Strange says.

“I wish it was that easy to believe,” Stark says, and for a moment they just look at each other silently. “Your little bird summons said you had something, in particular, to talk to me about? I can guess if you don’t want to say it out loud.” He smirks wryly. “It’s somewhat unsettling when someone like you doubts himself, you know.”

Strange huffs. “I can talk about my feelings, I’m not as constipated about my emotions as some people.”

“Ha, I resemble that remark, I’m sure,” Stark says. His flippancy melts away and he’s quite serious when he says, “You don’t need to listen to our favorite Inhuman royal. I know his voice is his magic power, but I don’t think any of that magic translates to his _mind_ voice.”

“It’s more complicated than that.”

“It always is.”

“He has a point, Tony,” Strange says. Stark looks at him warily. “I’ve spent a thousand years fighting someone else’s war. I spend more time in other dimensions than this one. I can see so much of what’s to come and I still let my own marriage slip through my fingers. What if I’ve just forgotten how to care about the here and the now?”

“Of course you care,” Stark says, waving a hand dismissively. “It wouldn’t hurt so much if you didn’t.”

Strange’s mouth flattens into a line. Stark believes that. Stark’s in clear agony over all of this. “I keep thinking of this as a numbers game. One Earth, that’s 50% survival. Two, 25%. On and on until we’re the last universe standing. Or until we meet an Earth stronger than us and we die.”

“You can’t tell me you want to do nothing.”

“Of course not,” Strange says. “I’m just… worried about becoming complacent about doing it. I don’t want to wake up one day and feel _nothing_ about this decision. It’s like you said, about our… shared problem.”

Stark glances over at the rows of amber bottles at his bar, and then he looks back at Strange. “Then do what I do—face your fear head-on. You’re powerful. I hate to admit that you have access to a different range of skills than I do, but you could do it, couldn’t you?”

“I’m not—”

“You want to feel something about someone, you get to know them.”

“I couldn’t visit every single universe in the firing line.”

Stark’s eyes are already sparkling in anticipation of the solution. “Then just visit one of them. Might give you the perspective you’re looking for. Can you do that?”

“I’m sure there’s a spell I can borrow for the occasion.”

Stark nods. “Walk in another world for a while. You’re worried about this becoming a numbers game, go out there and put some faces to those numbers.” His mouth flattens into a line for a second. “You’re probably just torturing yourself, you know?”

Strange smiles wanly. “Coming from an expert in the field.”

Stark huffs but can’t argue. “Everything I do, I do at 100%. Succeed or fail.” His gaze drifts back out the window. “I just wish Steve understood how close we are to complete failure.”

“He’ll forgive you,” Strange says, softly. “He always has before.”

“Maybe not this time,” Stark says, and Strange can’t find it in himself to deny it.

##

Reed wants them all to stay in Wakanda so they can move as a unit as soon as the Mind Gem can be located, but that’s not an obstacle for Strange’s plan. It doesn’t take much magic for him to retrieve what he needs from his home. Of course the Eye of Agamotto can enable his travel through dimensions, and that includes traversing the multiverse, but this is not a time to rely on brute strength, so Strange calls some objects to himself to make it easier.

The Hand of Vishanti will remain in his spell circle, to make it easier for him to find his way back. The Transhypnotic Jewel he inherited from the Ancient One is essential for any dimensional journey. He mentally apologizes to Wong for not being able to warn him as he directly summons all the pre-cooked food from their fridge, packing the Tupperware containers into a rucksack, because Strange doesn’t want to waste time hunting and killing the creatures that provide his foul-tasting sole source of sustenance, and the Vishanti know his hands shake too much for him to be able to cook it for himself. After a moment of thought, he also takes the two flasks of Luminiferous Painkiller from the fridge too. Wong should notice them missing and act to replace them.

He summons and immediately pockets several shattered pieces of Shazana’s Mystic Symbol Globe that once charged hold enough magic for Strange to use for the week; he’s been working up quite the bill for magic in _this_ universe, he doesn’t want to be indebted to more than this one.

Candles are essential for any spell involving time travel, and that’s what Strange intends to do. Slip between dimensions and jump back a week in the destination realm. Then he can spend a week getting to grips with their universe, knowing he’ll return to his world at the time he leaves it.

He doesn’t retrieve the Book of Vishanti, in favor of a different book—there’s a spell deep in the Tome of Oshtur that utilizes travel between dimensions. He doesn’t dare ask the Vishanti for help, even though that’s barely a formality these days and more of a thank you than anything, because their power is strictly limited to defense. Strange doesn’t think traveling to another dimension to assess its viability for destruction counts purely enough as defensive behavior.

Strange tries to keep his request in mind as he starts to piece together what he needs to make this happen. He can’t just use the all-seeing eye of Agamotto to show him the world; he has to go himself. These worlds need to be real to him. Not a statistic. Not a faceless foe. Every single universe out there contains billions upon billions of lives, more complex, rich and real than any one person could imagine.

Strange needs to know that the worlds they destroy aren’t _better_ than theirs. This is going to still be a numbers game at the end of the day, but math and emotion don’t need to be mutually exclusive concepts. It’s survival of the fittest. If the world Strange ends up in turns out to be the fittest world, well… maybe Strange will have a harder decision on his hands.

He knows he won’t learn what he means to by just watching another world, but he can still use the Eye of Agamotto, and that’s what he does. He holds it tightly as he readies himself to recite the spell he needs to jump between dimensions.

Strange closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and feels out as far as he can with his senses. The dragon lines that course beneath Wakanda are strong and powerful, like their King. He uses some of the power to briefly mask his appearance; no point scaring the other Earth by someone magically appearing out of nowhere. Once he’s sure his sudden appearance won’t cause a problem, he thinks through his needs once more.

He doesn’t necessarily need an Earth that’s definitely going to be in their firing line. He just needs an Earth that will teach him what he needs to know.

He opens his eyes. The candles around him blaze into life and Strange recites his spell in a clear and strong voice.

“ _May the Images of Ikon show me_

_what I seek to find_

_I command thee, awesome Agamotto_

_hear what’s in my mind_

_by the power of great Satannish—_

_by the might of Oshtur's name—_

_let me go to where I seek and then—_

_return from whence I came!!”_

 

#

 _Earth-1219_ , something whispers to him as Strange disappears from his own universe and arrives in this new one. It’s the radiation of this Earth—it’s more melodic than the radiation Strange is used to. This Earth is _singing_. He closes his eyes to listen to the melody. It knows Strange is a foreign object, but the melody doesn’t fight him, it just slips around him.

Strange takes a deep breath, inhaling the odd fragrance of this new Earth, tasting tarmac and peppermint on the back of his tongue, and he opens his eyes.

And stares.

His skin goes cold immediately, even if it’s warm where he’s arrived. There are people walking around. The world the Eye of Agamotto has chosen for him isn’t empty, for Strange is standing on an ordinary sidewalk filled with people, milling around and paying him no mind. If it wasn’t for the impossible-to-miss _lack_ of anything mystical present, Strange might even think he hasn’t even left his Earth at all.

Because that’s what happening. There are people and there is traffic and there are a thousand sounds and smells. This Earth is teeming with life.

But just regular, physical life.

The thing is, Strange doesn’t see the world like regular people.

His sensitivity to the mystical and divine means he is always attuned to the inhabitants of existence that go by unnoticed by most. When he arrives in the other Earth, he’s edgy, but he’s eagerly anticipating a different rainbow of the parasitical soul monsters that roam the mystical plane.

There’s nothing. _Nothing._ No spirits. No loose magic in the air. None of the interdimensional bacteria that infects everywhere on his Earth.

For a long moment, Strange wonders whether his third eye is working. He takes a second to set up a shield to make sure he doesn’t accidentally absorb any of the magic of this universe, and then takes a longer moment to divine his surroundings, letting his senses expand to a radius around him before he pulls it back in like a net. He’s expecting to pull _something_ mystical back in.

There’s nothing.

This world still allows magic, or his powers wouldn’t be working so well….unless they’re not. For a second, paranoia grips him, because while he _thinks_ he’s masking his presence, what if he’s wrong? New Yorkers on his Earth routinely ignore weird sights. Strange extends his hands. His fingers curl confidently into the right shapes, no shaking. That steadiness fails him for all else. He braces himself and extends his arms, pointing at a nearby pile of garbage, discarded on the sidewalk.

“By the crimson bands of Cyttorak, be restrained,” Strange whispers, and his mouth curves into a smile that is more due to relief than he wants to admit as the discarded wrappers and newspapers are trussed into a neat clump. Strange levitates it with a twitch into the nearest trash can, and his smirk widens as a kid catches glimpse of the floating detritus. The young boy’s mouth goes slack and he tries to tug at the arm of a woman nearby, his mother probably, but she ignores his excitable chatter.

He lets himself sink against a wall, letting this new world move around him as he catches his thoughts. The shards of Shazana’s orb in his pockets will give him enough magic for the time he’s here, and there’s probably more than he needs. This world isn’t used to magic, so even his small spells are working efficiently and quickly. He reaches out with his senses again, trying to find even the briefest signature of magic, and the answer comes back swiftly.

There is nothing. There is no one on this planet using magic. There is no trace that magic’s been used in the last hundred years at least. The truth slips in slowly, and it’s not what he expected. This is a world without anything living in its mystical realm. This is a world without a Sorcerer Supreme. This world is bristling with its own natural magic, because the Dragon Lines under the ground are _singing_ with power, but it’s all unused.

There is no one using magic on this Earth. Impossible for an Avengers world.

Strange’s stomach plummets.

He runs through all his usual spectrum of divination, but there’s nothing. No hint of mutations, or inhumans, or aliens. Strange will have to examine this world’s media to be sure, but he’s starting to realize the truth, and it’s almost terrifying. If the uneasy feeling in his stomach is right… this is a world without superheroes.

Is _this_ the lesson he’s meant to learn? That it’s hopeless? That this is an Earth without the means to even defend itself? Strange had been anticipating a fight. An Earth that also knew what was coming. An Earth that could fight back.

He’d known academically there would be Earths without their power. But to see this place as it is… All these people walking around, unaware they could be _days_ away from ceasing to exist…

Strange’s stomach has been difficult enough as of late, and he can ill afford to lose any energy, so he has to sit down on the sidewalk and breathe mindfully for a few minutes.

At least that’s one thing Strange knows now for sure. Whatever this experience does to his decisions that follow, none of them will be easy. This particular numbers game has a face, and it looks a lot like a small boy’s look of delight at seeing random trash float magically in mid-air.

Strange does lose the contents of his stomach then, and he staggers to a trashcan just in time. He almost wants to laugh. He hadn’t expected to learn the lesson so quickly. The Eye of Agamotto is always efficient. But he also can’t be so impatient. The spell chose this destination for a reason. Maybe there’s more to learn.

He straightens and wipes his mouth, looking around. Strange wants to drop the spell keeping him mostly invisible from people, but he’s not exactly dressed for the occasion. The pedestrians around him wear somber clothes, nothing too different from what he’s used to in his New York, if a little less colorful. Strange glances at his usual clothes, and the bright red of his cloak as it curls protectively around him, and doesn’t drop the spell that keeps him averted from the gaze of those around him. At least until he can find a way to blend in. He makes sure the rucksack containing his food for the week is firmly on his shoulders, and he strikes out.

The spell has taken him to a New York that seems very similar to his own, in an area of Greenwich Village that is familiar to him, so Strange finds himself heading first to 177A Bleecker Street, and he finds himself laughing at the cosmic joke—because the whole area has been demolished to make way for a Starbucks.

The cosmos always enjoys the threads of irony that loop through the multiverse.

Strange grips the Eye of Agamotto and closes his eyes, focusing in on it, and extending his automatic shield of divination to allow some mystical prediction to seep in. The Eye chose this universe for a reason, so he’s hoping it will show him exactly what he needs to learn. There’s no clear image in his head, no vision or whispered hint, but the Eye trembles under his shaking fingers whenever he tries to make particular turns, and that’s how he realizes it’s guiding him—subtly guiding him away from wrong paths.

The easiest way for Strange to put faces to the numbers of this Earth is to meld in, to actually join in and be seen, and he needs a disguise to manage that, but he also needs to know he’s not going to be mistaken for himself.

It’s probably ego that has Strange making his way to the hospital he used to work in, before his accident. As much as Strange tries to work hard and atone for the carelessness and ego of his past, it’s an old sin and it casts a long shadow. His feet move like they know the way even though technically he’s never been here before.

Strange doesn’t know why he’s surprised when he sees himself in there.

This world’s Strange has calm, controlled hands as he operates on a patient. Strange doesn’t get too close. He can’t bear to. This Strange’s face is calm and cool as he operates, and he snaps condescendingly at his nurse. Strange can barely bring himself to keep watching, but maybe it’s Tony Stark’s influence that has him following his alternate self after the surgery. He watches as the other Strange flirts casually with several of the staff, who all roll their eyes behind his back. He watches as the other Strange goes to see an upcoming patient and leaves them sobbing, not even the hint of kindness to soothe their trauma coming from his mouth. He watches as the other Strange casually declines a family who he could save, just because they can’t afford it.

That’s about as much as Strange can take. Is this the lesson he’s supposed to learn? That this world _deserves_ to burn?

No. _No._ Strange calms himself down. It’s just the raw pain from being reminded so intimately how bad a person he used to be. This is a debt he will be paying for eternity, and Strange can’t begrudge the universe its due.

The Strange of this world is near-enough identical to him in appearance that Strange drops his spell and raids Strange’s work locker to extract his wallet. The Strange of this world would probably try and get a janitor fired for it, so Strange makes sure to be noticed on the CCTV cameras of the hospital as he walks out, his cloak still swaying behind him. Let the Strange of this world try to explain _that_.

Strange forgets to use another spell to hide himself, already lulled into a false sense of security by the lack of magic being picked up by his constant waves of divination. So when he gets slapped by a woman outside the hospital gates, he’s actually stunned.

“You _monster,_ ” she hisses, “how _dare_ you do this to my mother, she _needs_ that operation, how could you be so callous—”

She tries to strike him again, but Strange blocks that hit with his wrist, his hands shaking too much to stop her. It’s not fear. They continually shake unless he’s doing magic, and she’s just a traumatized human being. There’s no need for his magic now.

Even the briefest touch of her skin against his is enough for the information to come flooding in. On Strange’s Earth, where the magical and mystical pollute the atmosphere, Strange can read someone’s secrets just by looking at them. Here, where magic hasn’t been used, where there’s no pollution of it, no magical traces overlaid across every part of the planet, it looks like contact is needed for specifics.

The information comes thick and fast. Her name is Joanna, her mother is Mabel, she’s 74, an advanced brain stem glioma, and they have no money, but they’re fighters, they plan to take the insurance company to court—Strange knows why his other self has rejected it, and it’s partially for the money, partially to save his own reputation. That glioma’s a likely death sentence. The other Strange has probably rationalized it as kindness, at not bankrupting a family just for false hope. That’s the sort of thing Strange used to do.

He pulls away. “I’m not him,” Strange says, gesturing at his own face, and then at his odd clothes. “My twin brother,” he adds, because explaining _I’m that asshole’s alternate self from another dimension_ is a little difficult. “People are always punching me when they mean to punch him.”

The woman—Joanna—stares at him in bewilderment, then embarrassment as she takes in Strange’s odd attire. “I’m—I’m so sorry, I thought—”

“Don’t worry about it. He’s an asshole.” Strange smirks. “I’ll pass on your greeting to him later.”

“Sure, thank you,” the woman mumbles, and runs away, glancing back at Strange and then at the hospital with a complicated expression.

Strange sighs and turns away. He deserves the slap for his own sake. He takes a few deep breaths and extends his net of divination further so he doesn’t need to physically touch anyone else for information, because her jumble of emotions and memories was too much.

His first stop is for money. He needs a base of operation where he won’t be disturbed. Strange has a different PIN code here, but ATMs in this world were not designed to repel magic, and Strange depletes his counterpart’s account by a fair few thousand. His counterpart won’t be hurt by it. Now he has the money, Strange quickly drops into a clothing store and buys a few changes of clothing. He knows he can’t keep wandering around in his cloak and tunic from the look the cashier gives him when he’s cashing out his items. Like even for New York he’s a couple of bagels short of a picnic.

His extended net of divination nudges him to a hotel that has several vacant suites with kitchenettes; as soon as Strange pre-pays for a whole week with cash the transaction happens rapidly. Strange drops his food off in the room and changes into clothes suitable for this Earth. They seem fond of dark colors. He detaches the Eye of Agamotto from his cloak and puts it on a chain, hiding it under his shirt. It’s still relatively early in the day according to the alarm clock in the room, so Strange decides to head out and explore, but it takes him four attempts to get the cloak to let him out of the room and stay behind. He ends up promising it that he’ll buy a coat long enough to hide it beneath and it settles over an armchair mulishly.

Strange heads back onto the streets and hesitates at the first corner. He’s not sure where to start. _Familiar faces,_ he thinks, and closes his eyes to focus. Normally he’s overwhelmed with information, fragments of desires from random passers-by, mystical storms that swirl him towards people in need—Avengers more often than not. Here there’s less volume, but there’s still a storm of noise, it’s just that the information and voices involved in that storm are weaker, harder to make out.

One emotion threads through like a warm ripple and Strange’s eyes snap open in time for him to catch the gaze of someone passing by. Strange gets a wall of heat and genuine curious interest from the person before he realizes who it is, and he’s so rattled by it he smiles back automatically.

Steve Rogers. That’s who it is. Well. That’s who it looks like. This is not an Avengers world, so this Steve is a civilian Steve. The universe has conspired for him to be born later, to be born healthy, Strange surmises, because he’s nearly as large as his super-serum counterpart. He’s wearing a green apron, with a logo of a hammer stitched into the front, next to a neat embroidered name tag: _Hello, my name is Steve!_

This Steve catches Strange’s look of appraisal and misinterprets it, because Strange is hit by a rush of _heat,_ the interested warmth dialing up to an unfamiliar feeling, and Strange ends up just nodding at Steve and hurrying on. He catches a faint hint of disappointment, _missed connection_ , and Strange ends up walking a few blocks while he takes it in.

When he does, he ends up just leaning against a wall and laughing out loud.

There’s no other way to interpret it.

Steve was _interested_ in Strange, just from his appearance. That wave of feeling was unmistakably a wave of _want._ Strange’s powers mean nothing usually gets to surprise him, but this is definitely a surprise.

Strange’s libido is definitely one of the things that his mortal body has had altered by his extended dealing with and use of magic. It’s just another of his appetites that has changed. He needs release, as much as he needs to drink water or eat those interdimensional tentacle noodle obscenities that Wong fries up for his dinner. Usually Strange makes do with one of the many willing lifeforms that cross his path; his net of divination means he _always_ knows who’s into him, and the spectrum of interesting individuals he’s been with since becoming Sorcerer Supreme has been… extensive. Always willing and consensual entertainment, of course.

The Steve Rogers of their Earth has never looked at Strange that way before. Not even a brief second of interest. Strange never really wastes time anymore thinking of anyone who isn’t interested in him. The Eye of Agamotto has chosen this Earth for a reason. And if events on their Earth play out as Strange fears they will, he’ll have to reach into the mind of their Steve Rogers to snip out _weeks_ of memories.

Perhaps it’s just another lesson for Strange to learn. A visual he won’t ever be able to shake.

Or maybe it’s just part of his own mental plea for _familiar faces,_ because of all of the familiar faces he might have seen first, he supposes it should be the face of someone he’s prepared to hurt _intimately_. There’s nothing more personal an attack than removing memories.

If they have to do it, it will be for the greater good. The faint sense memory of this world’s Steve Roger’s interest sours the thoughts. That’s probably for the greater good too.

Strange sighs. _Familiar faces,_ he thinks again, and lets the divination lead him.

He finds Peter Parker teaching at the Midtown School of Science and Technology; Strange cloaks himself with his magic so he can walk through the school without being bothered, and he watches Parker teach five minutes of a class about particle physics. Without powers, he’s just their friendly neighborhood Science-Teacher. He finds Ororo Munroe teaching photography in the same school.

Strange takes off the disguising magic again once he’s back on the streets. He finds Matt Murdock working at a tiny and cramped legal aid office. There’s a statue in Central Park Mall celebrating female pilots and he finds Carol Danvers printed on the plaque commemorating the fallen. A sign states that the artist who made it is Alicia Masters; when Strange grazes the name with his fingers, he gets a brief glimpse of her unveiling the monument, and her clear, seeing gaze as she looked on her creation. Of course. In a world without superheroes and supervillains, there will have been no Puppet Master, no explosion, no blindness for Alicia.

Then Strange’s divination pushes him down a side street he doesn’t understand, because it’s mostly deserted, and the only occupant is a man shuffling forwards, his shoulders hunched, and Strange doesn’t recognize him until they get up close and his divination net picks up the details, and Strange almost wishes he hadn’t widened the parameters of his spell, because some of the man’s cancer treatment washes through the spell, bitter in the back of Strange’s throat.

It takes him a moment to place the face. Usually because he doesn’t _have_ that much of a face when he crosses Strange’s path back in his Earth. This Wade Wilson isn’t Deadpool, but he is dying and there’s nothing on this Earth that can save him.

Strange can’t say why he follows Wade, not for any one reason or another. It’s not his magic, although that’s not dissuading him either. Something is tugging at him in his subconscious, a mystical echo. He keeps a distance, so Wade doesn’t accuse him of stalking, and Wade is so much easier to follow than his superpowered counterpart; he walks down several streets, his hat-covered head bobbing between pedestrians, moving with the impatient speed of a native New Yorker, before he disappears into a store.

It’s a hardware store of some sort, Strange realizes, as he shoves his hands in his pockets and approaches the building. _Mister Fixit’s HARDWARE_ , the sign above the door reads, in neat gold paint on green-stained wooden boarding.

He hesitates, but his magic doesn’t seem impressed by that; a noise buzzes angrily in the base of his skull and the Eye of Agamotto, looped around his neck and hidden under his shirt, vibrates until he goes into the store. For some reason, there’s a lesson to be learned inside this little hardware shop.

It’s bigger on the inside than Strange was anticipating, extending deep into the back of the building. The scent of sawdust hits him first and he rocks on his heels at how _friendly_ it seems, just from that smell. It probably means this building has seen a lot of happy times, for such a positive emotion to be steeped into the dust.

Wade’s voice breaks through Strange’s moment of fondness with a note of distinct panic. “Nate, for fuck’s sake, what are you doing—Hey, someone, a hand here? I know I heard someone come in! Hurry!”

Strange casts around for someone else, before realizing Wade means him, and he hurries forward down the nearest narrow aisle to the source of the noise. At the end of the long aisle is an open area with several workbenches, and Wade is hunched over someone trying to flail towards a running jigsaw.

Wade looks up and catches Strange’s gaze, looking relieved. “Thank goodness, switch it off! There, red switch at the wall.”

“I just gotta get one of them off,” the man in Wade’s grasp yells. The man is burly, and has jagged scars all over his face, including right over where his left eye should be. His hair is white and shaved close. _Nathan Summers_ , Strange realizes. The Cable of his Earth is a techno-organic mutant, part-human, part-machine. He’s a deadly and unstoppable weapon if he’s pointed in your direction.

Strange leans past a flailing Nathan and hits the red button, the jigsaw juddering to a close, and Nathan gets angrier.

“Dammit, Nate,” Wade yells, as Strange casts around for wires to disconnect the saw from the wall entirely. He ducks under the table and pulls the wires he finds, and as an added measure opens up the device to pull the blade loose. Wade watches with obvious relief. “Cable ties,” Wade adds, once Strange looks back up at him. Wade nods at a nearby shelf. “The clear ones should be long enough.”

Once again, the cosmos has a beautiful sense of humor, and seconds later Strange finds himself helping to tie this Earth’s Cable to a chair with cable ties.

“This is for your own good, Nate,” Wade says.

“It’s not,” Nathan whines, “it’s not, I need to take it off, Wade. It’s inefficient, I can make it _better_.”

Strange bends down to help secure Nathan’s legs to the legs of the chair, because otherwise he probably will hurt himself.

“Steve, man, you’re back, thank goodness,” Wade breathes. Strange glances up and almost wants to laugh, because of course, of _course_ it’s Steve Rogers again.

Well, Strange supposes it makes sense. The Eye of Agamotto knows everything about him. It knows how much Steve is playing on his mind. Invading someone’s mind is intimate, personal. The worst kind of attack.

“Where’s Jack? He was supposed to be on shift,” Steve demands.

“Who knows, man,” Wade says, “I just got here. Thankfully this—uh, I didn’t get your name—I’m Wade. Wade Wilson.”

“Doctor Stephen Strange,” Strange says, focusing back on securing the tie so Nathan can’t hurt himself.

“Thankfully Doctor Stephen Strange was here to lend a hand,” Wade says. He blinks and looks at Strange judgmentally. “Stephen Strange? _That’s_ what your parents landed you with?”

“Your parents called you Wade Wilson,” Steve says. “Can you judge?”

“Eh, walking dead man, it gives me license for hypocrisy,” Wade says, waving a hand airily.

“Thanks, Doc,” Steve says. “Most people would have called an ambulance, but I guess you know what health insurance is like these days.”

“Awful,” Strange agrees mildly, having no idea what health insurance is like on this Earth. As he meets Steve’s eyes, he gets another wave of that warm interest again, and Strange’s cheeks feel warm. The Steve Rogers of Strange’s Earth is always too concerned with saving the universe; base instincts and needs rarely exhibit among the usual readings Strange gets from Captain America. It’s why he’s the only option for wielding the Gauntlet, despite what Namor thinks.

“What kind of Doctor are you?” Wade asks. “Don’t suppose you’re a head doc? We could do with one of those.”

“I’m not even unwell,” Nathan protests. “I just need one less arm, it’s totally fine, I’m making another one, see?”

Strange looks over to the mess on the table behind the one Nathan’s partially now tied to. It resembles an arm, if he squints.

“I was a surgeon,” Strange admits, and Nathan looks interested, but then Strange holds up his scarred, shaking hands. “Now, not so much.”

“I’m so sorry,” Steve says, reaching out and putting a warm hand on Strange’s elbow, and Strange has to fight not to full-body shudder at the distinct interest coming from him. “Wade, you got this for now?”

“Sure,” Wade says, wrapping an arm around Nathan. “C’mon, bud, let’s have another discussion about how a dirty hardware store isn’t the place for impromptu surgery, huh?”

“Is this your first visit to _Mister Fixit’s_?” Steve asks, as he walks back towards the front of the store. He slips off the coat still on his shoulders and hangs it up on some hooks before moving to stand behind the main counter.

Strange nods. “I was just looking for—” His gaze slips to Steve’s green apron and the hammer logo. “—a new hammer,” he lies, as smoothly as he can.

Steve beams widely. “You’ve come to the best place on the lower east side to get one,” he says. “Any job in particular?”

“A big picture,” Strange says, smiling wryly. “Uh, about this big—” He gestures a fictional distance. “I need to hang it up.”

Steve nods. “Do you have the brackets necessary to put up something that big? How heavy is the frame? Do you know what kind of wall you’re hanging it on?”

“I may need to call my friend and ask for more details, maybe,” Strange says, tilting his head. “I hadn’t thought things through fully enough, apparently.” Always best to hide truth in your lies, after all.

“Well, we can look at some options anyway,” Steve says. He steps out from the counter and pauses, holding out his hand towards Strange. “Steve Rogers. I own this place.”

“Stephen Strange,” Strange says, lifting out one shaking hand towards him. He grimaces and Steve hesitates, his own hand freezing, still half extended.

“Does it hurt?” Steve asks. “I’m sorry—”

“No, I just can’t always control my hands as much as I’d like,” Strange says. He smiles, trying to mask his discomfort. “So I’d appreciate it if you took the lead on this handshake.”

“Oh,” Steve says. “Oh, of course.” He grins, off-center, and shakes Strange’s hand, firmly but gently at the same time. Strange has shaken hands with the Steve of his world a couple of times here and there, but this Steve’s skin is much rougher. No superserum means more calluses, especially for someone who owns a hardware store. Strange involuntarily imagines those calluses against his body, and _oh,_ that has some potential. “Uh, we’re both called Steve in some form though, that’s awkward—”

“You can call me Strange,” Strange says, taking pity on him.

Steve nods. “Uh, I prefer Steve, but if you’d rather Rogers for symmetry… Or some people call me Mister Fixit, but I don’t really like that…”

“Steve sounds good to me,” Strange says.

Steve’s interest in him intensifies at that, which is definitely a head-rush of a feeling. “So you said you had to call your friend about details for where you’re hanging the picture?”

“I’m only here for a week,” Strange says, and something about that spikes Steve’s interest as well. The vagaries hidden in the vapors of Valtorr couldn’t surprise him more than that. Strange ends up shutting down his divination for the moment because it’s messing him up a little. All the extra emotions entwined with his own are making him forget why he’s here.

“Ah, I see,” Steve says. “You here alone?” At Strange’s nods, he adds: “Work or vacation?”

“Work,” Strange says.

“But not… as a surgeon?”

“Not anymore,” Strange says, ruefully. He shrugs. “You’re Mister Fixit. My job is… well, somewhat the same, really.” He frowns as he thinks about the Illuminati and the incursions and how it’s less of a job and more of a fucking catastrophe. “Right now, I’m supposed to fix something I don’t even know how to fix.” His vision blurs as he admits, “I don’t even know if we _can_ fix it. I just know I have to try.”

“I guess I can understand that, a little,” Steve says.

When Strange looks up, Steve’s eyes are wet with empathy, and Strange follows his gaze down the aisle to where Wade is now untying a much calmer looking Nathan. “What’s wrong with him?” Strange asks, in as quiet a voice as he can manage.

“As far as we can tell it’s just a compulsion,” Steve says, just as quietly. “He wants to chop his own arms off and replace them with cyborg arms. Most of the times we can keep him quiet by letting him make the arms.”

Strange nods. “It’s nice you let him work here. Others wouldn’t.”

“Well, he’s a paying customer,” Steve says.

“I can take a hint,” Strange says, quirking a grin at Steve and enjoying the way Steve’s mouth falls, because he hadn’t meant it like that, he was just downplaying his kindness in front of Strange.

Strange lets Steve talk about the hammers for a few minutes, enjoying the genuine excitement Steve has for his products, and Steve’s face lights up when Strange buys the one he recommends.

Over at the register, Steve takes his time wrapping up the hammer, clearly reluctant to let Strange leave. It’s oddly charming.

“You busy after this?” Steve asks, finishing taping up a layer of brown paper around the hammer and then continuing to wrap it even more thoroughly, this time in a thinner paper meant for padding.

“I have a meeting,” Strange lies, and Steve’s face falls. “But I guess I can drop by afterward, if I have a reason to?”

“Well, it’s just—We normally close up around seven, go for food and a drink, and—Well, if you’re alone in the city—”

“You’re inviting me to tag along?” Strange asks, taking pity on Steve’s babbling.

“Well,” Steve says, a third time, “only if you’re interested. New York can be lonely if you don’t know anyone.” Steve shuts up abruptly, as if he only just now realizes how presumptuous he’s being.

“I don’t know anyone here,” Strange quickly assures him. “That would be really nice of you, thank you.”

“Great,” Steve says. “We normally close up around seven.”

Strange nods awkwardly. Steve holds out the bag containing his double-wrapped hammer. Strange takes it and walks out of the store, feeling a little flummoxed. He glances back as he crosses the street and sees Steve watching him through the window; Steve ducks his head in embarrassment when he realizes he’s been caught staring.

Strange smirks to himself and hurries on.

He searches out more familiar faces for a few hours. The Baxter Building is still there, but it’s only Dr. Richards listed on the lease for the top floors. Strange passes a billboard advertising the _Van Dyne_ collection that’s apparently only available at Williams Department Store; he thinks Simon Williams is one of the models. He finds Jessica Jones still running a PI agency, and a discarded _New Scientist!_ magazine with Hank McCoy’s human face beaming out from the cover, advertising new discoveries in gene therapy.

Strange stops by a bookstore and flicks idly through an atlas; there’s no mention of Wakanda, so if it exists in this world it’s still in hiding. He finds a book written by _Doctor Charles Xavier_ on DNA and swallows hard at the obituary on the dust cover. He stops by a department store and buys a long enough coat that his cloak can happily sit underneath, and tries not to think about how he basically answers to sentient clothing. Well, it could be worse.

Light starts to leave the sky and the temperature cools, and Strange tries to head straight back to his hotel, but the Eye of Agamotto tugs him into a bodega and directs him to pick up some eggs, which doesn’t really make a lot of sense. Strange squints at the owner, wondering if it’s another familiar face, but he doesn’t recognize the man, and he wanders back to his hotel holding the eggs awkwardly; he has to focus hard on not dropping them because his hands are trembling.

It’s only when he returns to his hotel room and puts them in the fridge next to his food that he realizes why the Eye’s directed him towards eggs. Breakfast food. Only polite for if one’s going to have an overnight guest. The Eye knows his needs even before Strange wants to think of them; Strange isn’t yet used to the way his body’s appetites have changed.

He’ll have to find someone willing to spend the night. With his divination skills, it’s never difficult to find a willing and consenting adult. Strange sighs. He’d been thinking of ignoring Steve’s invitation to join him after work, but he’s not going to find a bedmate lying here in the dark and feeling sorry for himself.

#

Even as he leaves his hotel room, Strange tells himself that he doesn’t need to go specifically return to _Mister Fixit’s_ hardware store; he can go to any number of bars in the city. He does get the point of his first visit there. Of _course_ his spell has led him to Steve Rogers. That’s who the whole event seems to be orbiting around. Steve is going to wield the gauntlet. Steve is a problem. Steve is the moral compass they should all be aligned behind and yet, and _yet_ … Strange finds himself standing across from the store before he’s even finished that thought through.

Strange hadn’t realized his hotel was so close to it, but that’s probably Agamotto’s design too. The spell would have only worked if it thought there really was a lesson for Strange to learn, and it’s going to make sure he learns it, and for some reason, the lesson needs to be learned here, at a tiny hardware store on a superhero-free Earth in a doomed universe.

Strange sighs, stares at the shop, and steels himself to cross the road and go in.

He’s come to this Earth for a _reason_. He went to see Tony Stark because he knew he was too off-kilter, he needed help. This solution is complete: magical, mystical, _engineered_. Strange needs to follow through, wherever this journey is going to take him.

It’s probably going to take him straight to hell. Well, a hell dimension. There’s several. At the end of all this, Strange might deserve them all. Strange swallows, because he’s not a monster _yet_ , and heads for the door.

Steve doesn’t look up from the register when the door opens, his blond head bowed as he looks through a pile of receipts. Steve’s lax about his store security in a way Strange has never seen on his own Earth, but he supposes people on this Earth don’t have to worry about New York’s growing complement of supervillains.

Strange looks around. The store is mostly empty, although Wade is still down at the far tables, his arm slung around Nathan as he works on something with a lot of wires sticking out of it. Stange re-activates his divination, just for a brief second, to see the cancer’s a cloud throughout Wade’s body, weighing him down with every step. Strange snaps the spell off again, the visual too much to bear for too long. There Wade is, at the very end of his life, still cheering on someone else. When most people would give up, he’s fighting until the end for someone other than himself.

 _Did you have to be so on the nose with that part of the lesson?_ Strange mentally thinks at the Eye of Agamotto. Of course he gets no response.

When Steve finally looks up to see who’s come into his store, Strange shoves his hands in his pockets and smiles awkwardly.

“You came back,” Steve says, and his smile is so genuine anything weird Strange was feeling almost evaporates at the sight of it. He looks almost shy for a second when he adds, “I almost thought you wouldn’t.”

“Well, I’m alone in a big city and I was invited,” Strange says, and he smiles charmingly at Steve.

“You can come and sit behind here, if you like,” Steve says. “We rarely get too many new customers at this time of day if you’re worried about being mistaken for a worker.”

“I’m sure—” Strange starts, but is disrupted by the bell jangling over the front door. Steve glances towards the door, but seems to relax: he knows whoever it is coming in.

[ ](https://i.imgur.com/NgSIeQN.jpg)

“Hey, Anthony,” Steve calls out over Strange’s shoulder.

Strange turns to look and is startled to see Tony Stark coming through the door to _Mister Fixit’s_.

 _Anthony_ is definitely not the Tony Stark of Strange’s world, that’s for sure. This one is dressed in ragged clothes, a faint blue trucker’s cap with the logo _Stane Enterprises_ on the front, worn sneakers, and he walks with a little bit of a limp. His beard is shaggier. But the way his eyes light up when he sees Steve is universal to both their Earths. There are lots of souls across the multiverse that seem to be drawn together. Avengers find Avengers, even when there are no powers involved. The mystical lines that wrap through existence knot them together tightly.

“Evening, Mister Rogers,” Anthony greets, tipping his baseball cap in Steve’ s direction. He glances at Strange. Strange’s divination picks up nothing but warm curiosity from him. His accent is different. Strange would say Bulgarian, but he’s not sure if Bulgaria exists on this world. “You picked up another lost soul, huh?”

“I resemble that description,” Wade hollers from over in the corner. Anthony flips him the bird with a good-natured grin.

“Good to see you still breathing,” Anthony calls across.

“Ah, the world tries every day to beat me down, and every time I say no,” Wade says. “Alas, I fuck up everyone’s plans.” He winks at Nathan. “It’s my superpower.”

Strange inwardly smirks. Most people would agree that would actually be a pretty accurate summary of Wade’s power as Deadpool.

“Anthony learned to speak English from _Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood_ ,” Steve says, in a soft voice. He waves to regain Anthony’s attention. “Hey, Anthony, this is Stephen Strange. He’s new to the area.”

“Ah, do not say you go by Steve too,” Anthony says, offering his hand to Strange.

Strange shakes it as best as he can with a wry smile. Anthony’s quick eyes notice how twisted and scarred Strange’s shaking fingers are, but he is too kind to say anything about it. “You can call me Strange. It often applies.”

Anthony beams. “A sense of humor. You’ll fit in here just fine.”

“Stephen,” Steve continues, “this is Anthony Armstrong. He’s an engineer up at Stane Enterprises. Should be running the place, really. He’s smart.”

“Ah, you’re too kind, Steve. Too kind,” Anthony says, and punches Steve softly in the arm, grinning openly at him. Steve beams back.

Strange has to fight the urge to stare. It’s been a long time since he’s seen Captain America and Iron Man this open towards each other. Maybe he never has. There’s always been at least one secret in the way of their bond. If their Steve doesn’t react well to news of the incursions, Strange will be the one to add yet one more secret to the pile.

“I got in some more of those carbon tubes you wanted,” Steve tells Anthony. “Usual corner.”

“I’ll look,” Anthony says, nodding at him. “We still on for drinks at closing, yes?”

“Ten minutes,” Steve says, and Anthony nods. “I invited Strange too, if you don’t mind.”

“Ah, of course not. I know what you’re like, you and your strays, _Styopa_ ,” Anthony says, winking at Steve and ambling over to a far corner of the store, blue eyes bright as he spots the tubes Steve mentioned.

Strange watches him go, still mentally cataloging the differences, wondering how much Tony Stark and Anthony Armstrong overlap. Stark’s muttered about finding out how he was secretly adopted, but Strange has never spent much time thinking about it. He supposes in this world, Howard and Maria Stark would never have had their son Arno genetically manipulated by an alien, so they wouldn’t have needed a decoy baby. Anthony would have been able to grow up with his real mom in this world.

Sometimes the whole _my universe has superpowers_ thing comes with its downsides, too.

A voice disrupts his thoughts. “Anthony’s an immigrant,” Steve says. Strange looks up to see Steve is now leaning against the shelf next to him, eyes lingering on where Anthony is amassing a small pile of items into a basket. “Came here four years ago. A genius inventor in his own country, fought his way to get here, and because he’s had to spend the last three years fighting the current administration’s immigration policies, that Obadiah Stane guy has him doing _monkey_ work in his basement. It’s a damn shame. He has a great mind.”

“So that’s what Anthony meant by strays,” Strange says, looking away from Anthony to observe Steve Rogers. Steve’s expression is dark, indignant. “You collect lost causes.”

“Not lost causes,” Steve amends. “Just people that need a little—” He gestures at the _M_ _iste_ _r Fixit’s_ sign, at the green apron he’s wearing and the strong hammer logo. “A little bit of help when it comes to fixing themselves up.”

Strange ends up helping Steve close up, feeling too weird to stand around while he waits; Steve hands him a broom with a promise of a beer when he’s done, which makes it much less awkward. Steve’s good at putting people at ease in any world.

Wade and Nathan sweep the worktops clean. After Anthony’s paid for his purchases and put them in a brown bag into his satchel, he wipes down the main window and pulls down the shutters. It’s a practiced routine, and Strange is weirdly pleased to be part of it, carefully brushing his sawdust into a neat pile and helping Steve put it in a trashcan.

Anthony points the way to their favorite bar to Strange, smiling at him like it’s not unusual for Steve to add people to the group, friendly in a way Strange might not be to an interloper to his group.

The bar they go to is only a couple of streets away. The barkeep seems to know them, already barking out orders to the kitchen.

“You want something to eat?” Steve asks.

“Just a drink is fine,” Strange says. “Uh, whatever soda you have most of.”

“I’m hungry,” Anthony says, pushing in between them to lean over the bar and pull out a bag of chips.

“Armstrong, back up, what have I told you about helping yourself,” the barkeep sighs, “I know where you live.”

“Ah, you know I’m good for it,” Anthony sighs, slouching off with his chips grasped in his hands.

“I guess I’ll have a coke too,” Steve says. The barkeep looks surprised, but makes a second one anyway, shooting the soda into another glass before sliding them both over. “Put them on my tab. And Anthony’s chips.”

“Sure, Steve,” the barkeep says, and glances at Strange. “You got a new stray, or is he your date?”

“They’re not strays,” Steve defends, as the barkeep laughs and heads up to the other end of the bar to deal with another customer that’s come in.

“Hmm, so I’m a stray or a date,” Strange says. He squints like he’s contemplating that, when really he’s just watching for Steve’s reaction to the teasing.

“Nobody’s a stray,” Steve says, instantly. He scowls and wraps his mouth aggressively around his straw and Strange grins and looks around the bar, genuinely curious what bars look like when they’re not getting torn up by superhero battles every other week.

“So we’re _all_ your date,” Strange says, and grins widely when Steve looks at him, annoyed. Steve laughs.

“Hottest fivesome in New York,” Steve says, solemnly, even if his face falls as he watches Wade have to pull Nathan away from slamming his fist inside a jukebox.”I’ll be right back,” he sighs, and slips off his stool to help him.

Strange glances over to see what this world’s Tony Stark is doing. Anthony’s glaring at a news broadcast that Strange thinks from a glance is about Donald Trump. Trump’s a corrupt businessman in his world, with rumors that he’s hands-deep in the Russian branches of the Maggia; Strange is actually pretty curious how Trump could be famous in more than one world. Strange takes his soda and sidles up to watch it alongside Anthony.

“Always trying to beat a bear with a stick, that man,” Anthony says, waving up at the TV dismissively, his mouth curled into a scowl. “Worst thing to happen to America. I come to build, make American dream, and I spend half my days just fighting to stay here. I _spit_ on this Donald Trump, I ever see him. President Trump. Laughable.”

Strange has to do a double-take, because, _what_?

“President _Trump_?” Strange echoes, glancing up at the TV and grimacing when it verifies with a very unflattering video that _Donald Trump_ has somehow been elected as the POTUS of this world. Huh. Earth-1219 might actually _welcome_ getting blown up.

“Anything interesting on?” Steve asks, sidling up alongside them. Strange looks over to where Nathan is slumped over a plate of fries, Wade persuading him to eat them. Crisis apparently averted.

“ _Disgusting_ is on,” Anthony says. “Ah, maybe I’m not in the mood to socialize now.” He sags and looks past Strange to look hopefully at Steve. “Maybe same time tomorrow, huh?”

“Of course,” Steve says. He watches Anthony carefully as he leaves, brow furrowed.

Strange doesn’t want to watch that moment, because it feels like he’s intruding, so he glances back up at the television, horrified at the sight of Trump in the Oval Office, what in Agamotto is this world _thinking_? He slinks back to the bar and his coke, wishing very hard for a second that it had vodka in it. Then he remembers just how much help the vodka was in healing his hands after the car crash (not at all) and sighs, audibly.

“That’s a big sigh,” Steve says.

Strange looks up to see Steve sitting back next to him, and he shrugs. “You didn’t have to have a soda just because I am,” Strange says, not wanting to explain the sigh.

Steve makes a soft noise. “Oh, I’m used to it,” he says. “Anthony’s an alcoholic. Solidarity really helps him. I don’t mind, and I guess...sometimes you just get into a rut, you know?”

“He’s an alcoholic too, huh?” Strange says, surprised by it. Entirely different universe, but some things are so similar. He looks down at his glass sadly. He has some of his Luminiferous Painkiller back at his hotel suite. He really could do with some now. All the magic he’s worked has done horrific things to his body. Strange wonders if he’ll ever know a day without pain, but he knows he doesn’t really deserve it, either.

When he looks back at Steve, Steve looks sympathetic.

“You really do attract lost causes, don’t you?” Strange asks, low and almost bitter.

“I don’t think you’re a lost cause,” Steve says, trying to sound reassuring. “But if you are, it probably makes me one too.”

“Anthony was certainly...very angry at the news.”

“Well, it’s that whole immigration stuff, I mentioned it before.” Steve glares at his drink, probably also wishing it had vodka in it. “He doesn’t think he deserves nice things. This administration is just, _ugh_. I wish I could punch them all.”

Strange tries to smother his smile in his drink.

“What?” Steve demands. “What’s so funny?”

“I just wish I could see you do it,” Strange says, because the mental image of _his_ Steve Rogers hitting _President Trump_ in the face with his shield is somewhat delightful.

“Is Anthony your type?” Steve asks, his voice almost excessively casual. “It’s just—you keep talking about him, that’s all. I’m just curious.”

Strange startles. Oh. He supposes that Steve’s right. He’s just a little fixated on this universe’s differences _and_ similarities. “No,” Strange says, firmly, because it’s true for _both_ Earths. “No, he’s just—I have this friend—” Is Tony Stark his friend? Well. Maybe. As much as Tony Stark allows any of the Illuminati to be his friend when all is said and done. Friend isn’t the word for it. What is the word for someone who’s deep in the same trench as you? “He’s having a tough time. Anthony reminds me of him. It’s helping me think about what to tell my friend when I get back.”

“Oh, right,” Steve says. “You’re only here for a week.”

“Maximum.”

“You might be here for less time?”

Strange isn’t sure if he can speed the spell up, but he is willing to hole up in his hotel room for the rest of the week if he has to. “I suppose it depends on what I find,” Strange allows.

“So what are you going to tell your friend?”

“Tony,” Strange says, because it might make Steve smile. “His name’s Tony.”

“I love coincidences, that’s so weird.” Steve does smile at that. “I can definitely see why Anthony distracted you. I tried to call him Tony once.”

“What happened?”

“He said that’s what his father used to call him. I guess his father wasn’t all that great.” Steve shrugs. “I suppose Anthony suits him.” Steve glances at Strange. “I’m here to talk to, if you need a willing ear. Sometimes it helps to have a stranger’s point of view?”

Strange stares at this man with Steve Roger’s face, but with a kind smile he hasn’t seen on a face like that for a very long time. And he probably never will again. The incursions are a nightmare, a poisoned gift with an extended potential to echo.

No one on Strange’s Earth will be smiling. Not for a long time. Is there a way for Strange to talk about it without sounding completely insane?

“There’s this decision,” Strange says slowly, “that my colleagues and I have to make. It’s difficult. There’s…. two large companies and only one can survive. We have to choose which business loses out.”

Steve looks sad for him already. The poor guy has no idea. How could he? How could anyone wrap their head around the full implication of the incursions, even with knowledge of them?

“You can’t merge them?”

Strange shakes his head. “Whichever company loses, everyone gets fired and loses their jobs. There’s not enough money to just share it out. Both companies are the same size. Both companies have the same amount of heart and passion from their employees.”

“So how are you going to pick?”

“I’ve already decided,” Strange says, which sounds callous, even now, when this Steve could never comprehend the magnitude of his metaphors. “My company has my fellow group of CEOs who can keep the company going after the closure. We have the tools and experience to really sustain it as a business. The other company—even if we chose to save them at our expense—there’s no reason to believe it would survive.”

“Well, I mean, you’d probably naturally pick your own company in that situation,” Steve says, diplomatically.

“It’s not that easy,” Strange says. “I’ve spent time in this other company, too. I’m already— _fond_ , I suppose—of some of the people there.”

It’s funny to say that out loud, when he’s barely been here for a few hours, but there’s just… There’s just so much _goodness_ that Strange has encountered behind the door of _Mister Fixit’s Hardware_ store. Fond is the right word for how Strange already feels when he looks over to see Wade helping Nathan. When he remembers how happy Anthony looked pottering around Steve’s shelves.

Fond. He’s already _fond_ of the people of this Earth. Is this the lesson he’s supposed to learn? Strange’s shaking fingers aim for the Eye of Agamotto, safely nestled under his shirt, and he touches it like it’s a lodestone, an anchor for his senses. He feels disconnected from everything.

“There’s another option, I suppose,” Strange says, and his voice sounds detached. He’s never really contemplated it before. “I take over the other company by myself.”

“Yeah?” Steve says, his eyes shining in the low light of the bar. “You could do that?”

“I suppose so,” Strange says, his brain tripping over his thoughts as they stumble out of his mouth. “But… it’s a narrow market. Very narrow. Chances are I would come up against three, four….who _knows_ how many other companies. If I chose to work for the other company, it would be just me. Every time. Shutting down countless other companies. Making thousands of people unemployed.” He thinks about it. Taking up anchor at another Earth. Becoming its sole Avenger. _I am become Death, Destroyer of Worlds,_ over and over and over again. “I’d be a monster.”

That’s the thing about options. Sometimes you technically had them. It didn’t mean they were viable choices.

Steve continues to talk, because he can’t help but try to be helpful. Mister Fixit. His store is well named, for intention if not outcome. “And if you stay in _your_ company—”

“I may still have to make those hard decisions, but I won’t be alone in them,” Strange says, and he smiles wanly. “And my best friend’s job will be safe,” he adds sadly, thinking of Wong.

“Yeah, sounds like your decision is easy,” Steve says. “Well, as easy as it could possibly be in this situation, which means, not easy at all.”

Strange tries not to wince, because Steve doesn’t understand how easily he’s agreeing that his entire world should be blown up to save Strange’s world. Who would ever be able to comprehend something like that? “That’s about right,” Strange says.

“So what does your friend think? Tony, wasn’t it?”

Strange nods. “He’s the same as me, I think. Except, well, it’s complicated too. His best friend—practically his _brother_ _—_ might not be happy that Tony wants to shut the other company down. This guy, he’s called Steve too, actually.”

“No way,” Steve says, shaking his head with an amused smile.

Strange hums in agreement. “If Tony agrees with the decision, he may have to lie to _his_ Steve in order to safely make it happen. There are complex reasons why, complicated laws. But they’re unavoidable ones. Tony has to decide if he’s willing to lie to his best friend in order to make this happen.”

“Shit, that sounds terrible,” Steve says. “I don’t know what I’d do if my best friend lied to me, especially if it’s a big decision. What’s the alternative? What if you decide to _not_ destroy either company?”

Of course, even in this universe he’s _Steve Rogers_ _—_ he’s always going to be looking for that magical plan C where no one has to get their hands dirty. “I wish it was possible,” Strange says, heavily. “If we do nothing, both companies go down. Permanently.”

“And Steve—this other Steve—can’t see that it’s hopeless, can he?” Steve shakes his head. “Damn. I’m sorry.”

Strange shrugs. It is what it is.

“Tell me about yourself,” Strange says. “Family. What brought you to New York. Stuff like that.” He’s interested. He’s always curious at what point in the timeline that each universe was created, what splinter point made them. He’d always assumed the multiverse was infinite, but the incursion problem intimates there is a finite number, or what would the point of the incursions be? Universes would just be smashing into each other permanently. Permanent destruction. Strange can’t believe in a multiverse that exists just to destroy and be destroyed.

“Oh, I’m sure you’d be bored,” Steve says, gesturing vaguely.

“I asked,” Strange says. “Besides..” He curls his mouth into a smile that might err on the seductive. “If I’m not a stray, I believe that makes me a date.”

Steve startles into a real smile. “I suppose a date would talk about stuff like that.”

“They would,” Strange says.

Steve laughs. “Well, I grew up in Queens, actually. Dad was a soldier, he didn’t make it back from Afghanistan. Mom retired and moved to Florida. I see her every few weeks. She’s happy. I went to college for art, realized I wasn’t up for the competitive side of art school, so I dropped out, bought a hardware store on a whim, never really looked back.” He shrugs. “I guess that’s kind of boring, but that’s me.”

“You’re not boring,” Strange assures him. “I’m much more boring. No family. I live a long way away. I work for a, well, you heard my company problems.”

“I’m trying to think of a less depressing date-type question,” Steve says. He purses his lips. “Do you have any pets?”

Strange pauses and thinks about the inhabitants of his living room table, and wonders if he can count them as pets. “Snakes.”

Steve raises his eyebrows. “I was maybe expecting a cat.”

Strange raises one eyebrow in return. “I seem like a cat person?”

“Maybe the kind that goes along your mantle and knocks things off.”

Strange grins. “Well, to be honest, my snakes sometimes do that.”

“What do you do with your snakes while you’re away? Do you put them in a… snakery?” Steve grimaces. “I’m sorry, I’ve never met anyone with snakes before, I don’t know the terminology.”

“I have a roommate,” Strange says.

Steve’s shoulders slump and he looks away. Strange suppresses a smirk. Even without his divination active, Steve’s physical interest in him is visible.

“He’s just a roommate,” Strange says, firmly, and Steve startles a look back at him, licking his lips automatically and blushing when Strange’s eyes track that movement. “I’m single. Not that it seems to matter for you, anyway.”

Steve stares, his eyebrows knotting together. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Sure you don’t,” Strange says.

As much as Strange has tried to keep it delineated, either _on_ or _off_ , his divination is second nature. On his Earth, it’s an almost constant work of magic. A security blanket. Strange is often on his own, and without anyone to watch his back, he must watch his own. For most people that’s impossible. Strange isn’t most people.

The trouble is it’s so second-nature that he doesn’t think anything about sending his senses out, prodding the mystical resonance to see if anything prods back. It’s as natural as breathing. Breath in, breath out. Inhale, exhale. Start divination, end divination.

It activates randomly, and every time it does, he picks up on Steve’s interest in him.

Picking up on Steve’s interest is like randomly inhaling a noseful of a pleasant scent. Strange shuts it out immediately, the way he blocks out all hint of interest from any of the Avengers he works with. He keeps his romantic entanglements separate from his work, or at least saves them for the denouement, when all the monsters are safely tucked away. If he excluded all he ever met in his line of work from his potential pool of romantic partners, Strange would have to abandon sex completely. Magic changes a mortal body, and all of Strange’s appetites have changed on his journey. Deprivation is not an option.

But there are no monsters here. There are no superheroes, no Avengers. And the Steve Rogers of this world is unattached and willing. There is no reason to deprive himself.

“I really don’t,” Steve says, after the long pause.

Strange stares at him openly, not bothering to hide his interest. The Steve of Strange’s universe is out-of-bounds. A fantasy ideal that’s too much of an idea to fantasize about, so Strange never has. But this Steve is real, and warm, and inarguably interested in him.

“You like the idea that I’m only here for a week,” Strange says softly. “You’re not interested in love. No, there’s someone else in your heart, that’s more than obvious.”

Steve’s eyes narrow, like he’s about to launch some sort of verbal counter-attack.

“But for some reason, you can’t have them,” Strange says. He’s careful not to say the name he’s pretty sure is right, because it would work like cold water and shock Steve out of this moment. Strange knows what Steve’s interest in him is, and what it means, and he’s willing to let it happen. It’s something they both need. “You can’t have them, but you _could_ have a random stranger passing through.”

“You sound awfully sure of yourself,” Steve mutters, but he’s not looking away.

Strange deliberately opens himself to his divination again and lets Steve’s interest fully in, to settle in through his body and slip down his nervous system. Yeah, there’s a reason he’s sure of himself right now. He shrugs. “I’m a stranger. If I’m wrong I just have to walk away and never see you again.” He side glances at Steve. “But I don’t think I’m wrong. Am I?”

Steve gives him an interested and heated look over the top of his glass. “You’re not wrong,” he says, softly.

Strange gives him a slow, crooked smile and holds Steve’s gaze in his own, and—as usual for Strange’s romantic assignations—that’s all it takes.

#

It’s not to say this Steve _isn’t_ muscular, but he’s slender in a way Captain America isn’t. Strange runs his fingers over Steve’s chest, his fingers shaking and not from arousal. Sex isn’t magic, so Strange isn’t in perfect control. Steve seems to think it’s nerves, and he’s kind until he’s not. Steve Rogers has no magic in any world, but he has a divination of his own. He seems to realize Strange will not accept more than a limited amount of kindness.

Strange might have _murder a world_ on his to-do list soon, sooner than he’s ever going to be okay with. Whether it’s this one or another, kindness is the last thing he deserves. Steve deserves it, though. Strange holds him close as best as he can and does his best to bring them both close to some sort of oblivion, because this world’s Steve is suffering a pain of his own, and sex can make him forget it for a spell. It’s mutually beneficial for both of them.

His best is very, very good. Strange falls asleep in Steve’s careful embrace faster than he has in years.

Come the morning, Strange tries to be a gentleman and offers Steve breakfast before he recalls exactly what that means. There’s a reason Strange normally only eats in front of Wong if he can help it.

Steve doesn’t know the horror he’s about to find in Strange’s hotel kitchenette; he just nods at Strange’s offer and pads over there with a sheet wrapped around his waist before Strange can think to offer to call room service.

Steve peers into the fridge and finds Strange’s Tupperware. Strange hurries over after shimmying into a pair of sweatpants.

“What _is_ this stuff?” Steve asks, sniffing the contents of one of the pots and physically recoiling. He carefully replaces the lid and puts it back in the fridge.

Strange smiles thinly. “It’s the only thing I can eat, I’m afraid.”

Steve looks appalled. “You _eat_ that? I thought it was food for your… you said you had snakes?”

Strange laughs, because his snakes are vegetarians. For a given definition of vegetables. “No, this is mine. Believe me, if you think it smells bad, the taste—” He visibly blanches.

“That bad?”

“It takes like leprosy.”

Steve winces, thinking it’s just exaggeration, unaware that Strange’s powers means he’s tasted nearly every single disease in the universe that can kill a human, and a million more besides.

“Maybe don’t open the flask either,” Strange adds belatedly, because the Luminiferous Painkiller also doesn’t smell that great, and Steve probably wants to keep as much control over his olfactory receptors as possible.

Steve looks at him and takes out the carton of eggs instead, already looking around for a pan to cook them in. He puts them on the counter and hooks down a frying pan. “At least you can have eggs too, I guess,” he says, sadly.

“Oh, I can’t. I bought the eggs for you.”

Steve blinks. “You… bought the eggs for me?” He squints.“You only just met me. You were that sure you were gonna get me up here, huh?” He looks faintly accusing.

Strange actually flusters for a second. It’s not a familiar feeling. “I was feeling optimistic,” Strange says. “If I was a real gentleman I’d offer to make them for you, but—” He holds up his shaking hands for illustration; there’s a reason Wong cooks all his meals. “Perhaps eggs and I are not a great combination.”

“Ah, yeah, I see that,” Steve says.

“I didn’t think it would be you specifically,” Strange clarifies, as Steve busies himself frying up some of the eggs. He’s wearing one of the new shirts Strange bought yesterday with his doppelganger’s funds; it’s stretched thin over Steve’s broad shoulders. It’ll never fit Strange now. He smirks a little. It’s not like he has an emotional attachment to any of his belongings. Well. Apart from his cloak, he supposes.

Everything else in his life _has_ to be disposable, on some level. There are no guarantees in the life of a Sorcerer Supreme except for mystical chaos by the bucket-load.

“Ah, well, I can understand that, you are here just for a week and you are _very_ tense,” Steve says, shooting Strange a loaded sort of look.

“Much less tense now,” Strange says, pulling out one of the pots of his own food from the fridge, shoving the ones with obvious eyeballs to the back. He pulls out a fork from the drawer and pads over to the small table in the room, and he watches Steve cook. It’s somewhat pleasant watching the way his back muscles ripple as he moves.

Steve settles back in the seat opposite him, lounging back and exchanging the kind of lazy morning-after smiles that speak louder than words can.

“That can _not_ taste good,” Steve says, wincing as Strange eats his pot of fried tentacles.

“It’s worse than you can imagine,” Strange says. “But you do what you have to, to live, don’t you?”

Steve’s nose wrinkles. “I’m not sure everything is worth the prices we pay for them.”

#

Strange doesn’t kiss Steve goodbye after Steve makes his excuses to leave; that would instantly dampen the surface-level of ardor this Steve Rogers has for him, purely just by the second-hand taste of Strange’s breakfast. Even the sight of Strange eating it hasn’t put Steve off, and he asks if Strange wants to come by the store again, when his work for the day is done.

It’s an easy, no pressure request, and Strange finds himself nodding before he means to. It becomes a routine without too much conscious thought about it. Strange spends his nights with Steve, and his days wandering across New York, meeting Avenger after Avenger. Seeing X-Men without their mutations. He spends two days finding familiar names on gravestones, and another day he spends tracking down Wong.

He eventually discovers Wong’s widow, Imei. Wong and Imei had a boy before he died, and they called him Stephen, which has to be a coincidence—Wong and the Stephen Strange of this Earth have never crossed paths as far as he can tell—but it is still a cosmic knife in the heart.

It unsettles him so deeply that he spends the rest of the day just walking in circles, until he can come up with a plan. He used to have a secret offshore account with bribes in, from his younger days as a surgeon where all he cared about was money and prestige, and this Earth’s Strange has that too; Strange halves that account and moves the money into an account to be given to Wong’s firstborn child when he comes of age—

It’s a terrible solution. The multiverse will probably die before it matters. Money doesn’t bring a person back. But it’s all Strange can do, so he does it, using his magic to make sure the Strange of this world will never realize where his money has gone.

Strange finishes off each day by stopping by _Mister Fixit’s_. Steve never makes it too obvious what’s going on in front of the others, but Strange knows it’s not unusual for Steve to have hook-ups that don’t stick around. Especially ones that look like one particular regular to the store; Wade makes sure to tell him so, checking to make sure Steve’s not in a position to break Strange’s heart, and Anthony’s jealousy when Strange lets his hands linger at the small of Steve’s back on the way out of the bar is clear.

Steve shows Strange his apartment on the last full night of Strange’s visit; Strange supposes it’s Steve’s routine for his temporary relationships, one last hurrah. It’s a nice enough place, Strange thinks, if a little plain. But then most places are plain compared to the Sanctum Sanctorum.

There’s still no romance about their liaison, which Strange appreciates. Steve is enthusiastic and concentrates on Strange like he’s the sole focus of all his attention, and that level of regard is a definite turn-on. Strange cheats and uses his divination in order to drive Steve wild. He knows he’s a means to an end for Steve, a way to push aside his own feelings for one more day, but he still wants to be a pleasant memory.

Or he wants some of the memories of this week to be pleasant, even if some truths might cause pain later, if one day this Steve Rogers lives to see another Earth hanging low and pregnant in the sky and realizes the stranger he spent a week with was nothing but a harbinger of doom. Does it count as a cloud having a silver lining if the cloud is only there to obliterate your universe?

Strange is running out of time here, and he still feels just as lost as when he arrived. If that makes him grasp at Steve’s willing body with added desperation, it’s fine, because Steve reaches back for him just as thoroughly. Strange has seen that one-minded determination on the battlefield and he’s probably always going to be wrecked for a second when he remembers what that passion feels like turned solely on him.

Steve Rogers is just like Tony Stark in exactly the best and worst way. 100% setting, for whatever he’s doing. Amazing when they’re both pointing at the same goal.

Devastating when they’re set to directly collide.

“You look like you have something on your mind,” Steve says softly, when some of their frantic energy has subsided and they’re lying on Steve’s large, soft bed, not even touching.

“Hypothetically,” Strange says, staring at the ceiling, perturbed that there are no interdimensional tentacles crisscrossing across the paint, no mystical parasite lazily floating through the air around them. “Say there were two planets about to crash into each other. And you had to choose which one to destroy, because otherwise both planets would be destroyed. But blowing up one planet would kill 6 billion people, not even including the animals. What would you do?”

Steve makes a thoughtful noise. “You can’t push one away from another, with like… a rocket.”

“We’re fresh out of rockets, Mister Fixit,” Strange says.

Steve huffs a laugh. He turns to look at Strange. “This about your company dilemma, huh?” At Strange’s nose wrinkle, Steve shrugs. “You have to save one _planet_. Better one than neither. But why wouldn’t you want to save your own planet? Especially when you said your friend was, uh, living on that planet? If we’re using this metaphor.”

“Maybe there’s someone living on this other planet,” Strange says, lowering his gaze from the ceiling to look at Steve. “Someone I don’t want… blown up.”

“Can you hire them at your company?” Steve asks. “Wait. I mean. Can you, uh, rescue that person from the planet before it explodes?”

Strange smiles thinly, regretfully, because wouldn’t that be a solution? Physically he could get away with it, but the multiverse desires equilibrium. Strange could never sacrifice the soul he would probably have to in order to pay the entropic cost and keep this Steve for himself. Steve would never forgive him. “Probably not,” he says, softly.

“Hm,” Steve hums. “Is this person your mother? A sibling?”

“Of course not,” Strange assures him. He takes a measured breath. This fling is over anyway. “He’s… well. If I said I could have learned to feel something for him—just a little—in the way you feel towards Anthony Armstrong, would you understand?”

It’s a bullet in a gun guaranteed to never miss, and Steve lets out this noise that shows Strange’s shot has hit. Strange has known since Steve’s mouth first touched his why Steve had been so interested that Strange was only there for a week. It’s what he does. He hooks up with anyone who reminds him even vaguely of Anthony, but only people he doesn’t have a chance to fall for romantically, because it wouldn’t be fair.

Not when Steve’s already in love with someone else.

Steve’s face instantly shutters, his eyes wet, and he turns his gaze to the ceiling, unable to look Strange in the face. Their skin has touched, repeatedly, and Strange knows all the secrets of this world’s Steve Rogers now.

“He doesn’t want me,” Steve says, soft and self-loathing and his hands clench into claws at his sides. “I’ve wanted— _he_ wanted—but—It’s his damned immigration status. Since Trump got in power, no one’s safe, and Anthony—He loves it here.” His mouth twists into a hateful expression. “He doesn’t want to give America any reason to throw him out than it already has.” He lowers his gaze from the ceiling to Strange. “He says he couldn’t bear to break my heart if we got split up.”

“And he knows you’d go with him?” Strange asks, as gently as he can, even though—Well, this hurts. Kind of. This Steve is not the Steve Rogers of his world. He’s an entirely different Steve. And Strange was beginning to get used to him. It’s not love, of course it’s not, but if Strange stayed—the potential is clear.

He could love this Steve.

He really could.

Strange’s magic is already expanding out before he can stop it, and the answer comes back swiftly. Steve’s been in love with his Tony Stark for years now, but it’s been so long, and Anthony has rejected him so many times, that maybe Strange could win him over permanently.

“He doesn’t believe that I would,” Steve says.

Stark’s low self-esteem is apparently universal to the multiverse too, then.

“I’m sorry,” Strange says, surprising himself that he mostly means it.

“So _your_ almost-Anthony,” Steve says, slowly. “Do you love him?”

“No. But I think I _could_ , if I stayed and worked at it, if that makes sense.”

Steve smiles, even though it’s strained. “Maybe you should.”

“Right,” Strange says. “And how do you think he’d react if I told him I’d just caused 6 billion people to die?”

“That’s an excessively dramatic metaphor. I’m sure he could forgive you for a few lost jobs.”

That’s so naive and sad that Strange has to roll over and kiss him.

“What was that for?” Steve says. He smiles warmly, even though his eyes are still wet and his mouth is turned down at one side, unhappy to be reminded about his requited-but-unrequitable feelings.

Strange braces himself over Steve’s body, resting on his elbows. The Eye of Agamotto dangles, grazing against Steve’s chest, and Steve shudders at the touch of the cold metal.

Their time left is limited. Strange wants to remember everything.

That’s deeply ironic, considering what he might have to do to the Steve Rogers of his world.

“I’m going to make you forget everything,” Strange says. He cups Steve’s face. “Forgive me.”

“Of course I’ll forgive you,” Steve says, and Strange commits his words to memory.

Strange will never earn those words in his universe, but it’s nice to get to hear them anyway.

##

Strange leaves Steve’s apartment with a lingering goodbye kiss, and he hurries back off to his own hotel, making sure he has everything he came with. He puts his Tupperware pots back inside his rucksack, because Wong gets angry whenever Strange wastes plastic, and he leaves the rest of his cash on the counter for the cleaning staff. He won’t be needing it where he’s going.

He bags up the clothes he’s worn for the week, but on second thought he keeps the t-shirt Steve kept stealing. Strange has kept uncannier souvenirs of some of his adventures. He sits on the edge of the bed and layers up his divination spells again, winding in a countdown so he knows how long he has left before he goes home.

It’s longer than he thought. Apparently this Earth has a weaker Sun and a shorter orbit, so days are just a little shorter than Strange is used to. It will keep him here until the closing hours of _Mister Fixit’s_ and maybe that’s just perfect.

After checking out, Strange ends up walking aimlessly once more. He’s not entirely sure what he was supposed to learn while he’s been here, but he feels more than one week older. Maybe the real lesson will come clear later, when Strange is back in Wakanda, on his Earth, waiting for Reed to tell them the Mind Stone has been used.

It’s only a matter of time.

Strange ends up back at a graveyard; this time, now he knows where to look, he finds Wong’s gravestone. He cries for his fallen friend. This isn’t his world, and it isn’t his Wong, but somewhere out there is a thousand worlds, and a thousand Wongs, and maybe they’re all going to die, over and over and over again.

Is that the lesson? Is any of this worth it?

Is this world _worth_ saving? Strange thinks this Steve is, but that’s just bias talking. This world is defenseless. Even if Strange went straight to the governments and made them believe he was serious, the most they have is nuclear weaponry, which would wreck them in the process.

Just because they _can’t_ protect themselves, does it mean they don’t _deserve_ protection? Strange is a Doctor. He’s supposed to be committed to doing no harm. But that’s a more complicated creed than people imagine.

People always conflate easy and simple, and they’re so rarely the same thing at all.

There’s not long left now before Strange will leave this Earth. He looks at the soft countdown winding its way around his aura, and wonders if that’s what the incursion countdown will feel like when it’s finally active.

Worse. Much, much worse.

Strange’s eyes feel hot and hard. This is unbearable. He needs comfort, and that’s going to be an impossible need to fulfill once the incursions begin.

He gives up on pretending he wants to be anywhere else, and he goes straight to _Mister Fixit’s Hardware_ store. Strange makes sure the cloak stays firmly tucked under his coat, and pushes through the main door, smiling involuntarily at the bell that jangles above him to announce he’s arrived.

“I wasn’t expecting to see you today,” Steve says, and his face lights up like he’s genuinely pleased.

“I had a little time left,” Strange says. A little time left for him to pretend everything is just fine. “Thought I’d check out my favorite hardware store before I go.”

Steve beams. “Maybe you can help me pick out some new paint colors to stock. Wade keeps telling me not everyone wants red, white and blue _everything_.”

“Wade is right,” Wade hollers from down the other end of the store, where he’s helping Nathan do something with a hot glue gun. Probably safer than letting him near the jigsaw again.

Strange leans in and checks out the catalog Steve shows him, and he smiles to himself; he likes the blues and reds best himself, but he dutifully picks out a shade of Iron Man gold that Steve likes. Steve lets Strange man the register, security in this Earth is _exceptionally_ lax, because Nathan’s having another episode; Strange ends up watching the scene fondly, because maybe that’s just how the multiverse works. Avengers will always try to assemble in some form. Dysfunctional families, on every Earth.

“Steve, where’s your apron,” Wade chides, after they’ve finished tying Nathan to a chair with a length of guide rope. “Please, you gotta wear your cute little work apron or I’m telling the manager you’re not in uniform.”

“I _am_ the manager,” Steve laughs, but dutifully trots over to the hooks to retrieve it, looping it over his head.

Strange laughs, and he can’t help but smile when Steve grins in his direction. The store has such a pleasant atmosphere, just a bunch of misfits that shouldn’t work and really do, and Steve is a leader wherever he is, and this dysfunctional family is as warm as every other one Strange has seen on his Earth.

That’s the real horror of this whole trip, really.

The one thing he’s really discovered.

Even though it has no powers, and it’s defenseless, and it’s not going to survive the incursions, it’s still a world worth saving.

Every world is worth saving.

Every single one of them.

Stephen’s fingers itch, like he wants to reach for something. He can’t figure out what it is at first, he only knows it’s something cold, glass, cylindrical. When he realizes he’s reaching for a bottle he almost wants to laugh. One world or another world or a hundred worlds. It’s all terrible.

This world is worth just as much as his own. It’s just as rich and diverse and wonderful, as much as it’s dark and scary and horrible.

There is no decision to be made.

There is no decision he can make.

But Strange has a _choice_ and that is somewhat different. He could stay here. He could use his magic to protect this Earth. He knows he has a solution on his Earth, the blu’dakoor. Its colloquial name is the Blood Bible for a reason. No caster has managed to use a spell from it without killing themselves, but even if Strange can find a way to circumvent that cost, every spell from it requires the spirits of forty fallen men.

If Strange had the book, and used it _here_ and somehow survived… He would be the sole destroyer, smashing world after world on his own for who knew how long? How many times before it became _easy_?

 _When things bec_ _o_ _me easy,_ Tony Stark says in his memories. _T_ _hat’s when you become a monster._

And that was even considering if he _could_ manage it on his own, in a world without power, in a world with magic but no one else who could use it? If he could only turn back one incursion, Strange would have destroyed his home for nothing.

The math works out as it always has.

Strange will return to his universe.

He has to go back, because there, he’s not alone. He has the Illuminati by his side to share the terrible burden. It’s selfish. He’s been selfish before. It’s a curse that for the sake of his own world, he’s willing to try, to turn that poison into a cure of sorts.

And if Earth-1219 comes up versus their own, Strange will destroy it.

The whole of existence seems to narrow down suddenly to this very second in this very place, and it’s hard to breathe. Strange lets himself close his eyes and he focuses on the details around him that he also can’t control. The scent of sawdust. The sound of Wade laughing in the background, Nathan struggling against his bonds and his own mind, Steve probably catching glimpse of his temporary lover, frozen in this terrible moment of realization.

Strange opens his eyes slowly, proud that his vision only blurs a very small amount.

He’s planning to be a monster, and he must embrace that as his path in life, but maybe there’s a couple of things he can do.

People on death row always get a last meal.

Steve is watching him, head tilted in concern, but the concern fades as Strange smiles at him. Strange focuses briefly on his own magic. The countdown to his return flickers down even more. Not long now. His divination aura trembles; Strange can feel Anthony approaching the store, not yet there but close enough, and he makes his move.

Strange stands up with intent, walking over to Steve, then he leans in and kisses him, full on the mouth, and curls his hand in Steve’s hair, an unmistakably possessive gesture. Steve makes a startled noise but kisses him back. He wouldn’t if he knew why Strange had chosen to kiss him now.

 _I could love you so easily, if I let myself,_ Strange thinks into the kiss.

But that’s not the purpose of this kiss. This kiss is a gift, in a way.

As with all last kisses before death, it’s a betrayal.

Behind them, the bell jangles noisily, and Anthony takes in the sight and hisses, low like he’s been punched in the stomach, and Strange smirks. Steve jerks backward from Strange. He clocks Anthony’s appearance and his face falls.

Then Steve clocks Strange’s smirk, and he realizes that this kiss and the timing was _planned_ , and Steve’s mouth hangs open in horror.

“I have to go,” Anthony mutters, and he goes to flee, but Strange extends his left arm, thinks the invocation, and the door slams closed, magic pooling out in a pretty cloud that all of them in the hardware store can see. “What the fuck?”

Strange smiles to himself. He knows Steve’s feelings, but he can divine Anthony’s feelings too, and his jealousy has been thick and unmistakable all week. It was never going to take much for them to be together. This moment should be more than enough. It’s funny how much sense it makes when Strange thinks about it, actually. Stark and Rogers. He wonders if his Earth’s Stark and Rogers know how well they could match, or if that potential is just so lost under years of pain that it’s just one more jagged edge to bleed on when they inevitably clash time and again.

He definitely understands where Anthony’s attraction stems from. Steve is a beacon. Even now, in the face of something so unusual, Steve’s trying to be brave and face it straight on. Sometimes just looking at him is like looking straight into the sun.

“What _is_ that?” Steve demands, pulling away from Strange and heading around the counter towards Anthony, yanking him back from Strange’s electric display.

At the back of the store, Wade and Nathan are also walking up the aisle to stare at the strange lights.

Strange doesn’t need to make his magic visible, but this is all part of the show.

A parting gift, for these people that have shown him what he needed. He’s a doctor and sometimes all you can do for a terminal patient is provide some palliative care.

He’s not going to change his mind. But he won’t be a soulless monster.

He’ll be a monster going into every decision with his eyes wide open.

“That’s magic,” Strange says, and he drops his coat. His cloak swirls out dramatically behind him and he smiles. “In particular, my magic. I’m not exactly from around here.”

Steve stares at him, horrified, and he’s already shielding Anthony’s body with his own.

“The devil,” Anthony whispers. “You’re the actual devil.”

“Based on what I’m going to do,” Strange acquiesces, “perhaps that’s accurate.” He closes his eyes and then opens them again, focusing on Nathan, his hand steady now he’s doing magic. “By the Hoary Hosts of Hoggoth, by all that is sacred and true! By the sinister Sons of Satannish, let Nathan’s mind be made anew!”

Nathan falls to the floor, grasping at his head.

“Call the cops,” Anthony says, tugging at Steve’s shoulders.

“There’s no need,” Strange says. “I’ll be gone by the time they get here.”

“Wade, Wade,” Nathan murmurs, “I think he somehow fixed me. I can’t hear the voices anymore. The ones that tell me to rip my flesh from my bones—they’re gone.” He stares at Strange. “Maybe he’s an angel.”

“Well, technically, the devil is an angel already,” Wade whispers. “Just one that had a bit of an issue with gravity. And following the rules or something, I dunno, I always played truant when it came to Sunday School.”

Strange counts the fragments of magic left in his pocket. There’s enough.

“Wade,” Strange says. “Look at me.” He holds out the Eye of Agamotto and grins fiercely. “O beam of purest light, heightened by Aggamon’s mighty whole, smite this entity of evil, and remove the foulness from this soul.”

Wade stares at the light that emanates from Strange’s hand to hit him in the chest, and then he doubles over, starting to vomit blood and dark gunk over the floor, and Nathan crouches down, holding onto Wade. It won’t be all the cancer gone from him, but it’s enough for a longer life. How long, Strange isn’t sure, but then he’s not sure any of them have much time left at all.

“Devil,” Anthony whispers again, but he looks much less sure.

Steve stares at Strange.

Strange can already feel the Hand of Vishanti, locking onto the Transhypnotic Jewel in his pocket. The Eye of Agamotto trembles against his chest. He looks at Steve, as coolly as he can.

“The multiverse is dying, Steve Rogers,” Strange says, softly. “Days, weeks, months, I don’t know how long you have. But Earths are colliding and there’s nothing I can do for yours.”

“I don’t know what’s going on,” Steve says, his gaze scanning across Strange’s face desperately, like there’s an answer there. “What do you mean _multiverse_? And _dying_?”

“I mean your Earth, at some point, is going to collide with another Earth,” Strange says. “It might be mine. It might not. From the moment you see it in the sky, you’ll have eight hours.”

Anthony swears in Bulgarian, or whatever the country is called in Earth-1219.

“And either your universe will die, or both will,” Strange says.

“But you were joking,” Steve says, “before, that was just a metaphor—“

“I wish it was,” Strange says. “But no.”

“Then—you’re a monster,” Steve breathes, horrified.

Strange nods. “I think that’s what I came here to really learn.” He glances over at Anthony. “Don’t be stupid. Let your last days alive mean something.”

Anthony looks confused until Strange nods at Steve, and his cheeks color red. It’s the only gift Strange has for this Earth’s Steve Rogers. He hopes they take advantage of the warning to have a little bit of happiness before it’s all too late.

Because Earth-1219 has no chance of surviving an incursion.

But Earth-616 does, and Strange is going to fight for that. If the Earth needs a monster, he’s ready.

Strange closes his eyes and the magic takes him away.

#

Strange wakes up from where he left. From when he left.

Everything unfolds like a perfect nightmare.

The mind gem activates and they find it.

Beast agrees, reluctantly, to join the Illuminati, join the fight.

An incursion begins and Captain America raises the gauntlet to push the incoming Earth back and, as predicted, the gauntlet shatters. The time gem disappears. Perhaps it’s their fault for letting the man with a complex about the past wield it.

Reed calls a meeting, and their Steve Rogers implodes in horror at what the Illuminati intend to do.

What they have no choice but to do.

“Do it, Stephen,” Stark mutters, like he’s plunging a blade into his own heart.

Strange stands up tall. His magic is ready. “I'm sorry, Captain. We have no choice. You were never here. You will remember none of this.”

And he starts to wipe Steve Rogers’ mind.

#

The rest of the Illuminati will think the mindwipe is an instant process, but it’s not. Time is a social construct. What seems like a mere second to his colleagues is a second suspended in space and drawn out, stretched as far as it will go.

Steve is a slave to strict linear time. He cannot move from this moment. There is no physical strength, serum-enhanced or otherwise, that can stand up to a mystical threat like this one. Strange has made his thanks to the Vishanti and the deed is as good as done.

Strange wraps the cords of his magic deep into Steve’s brain and starts to knot them around the memories of the day, piece by piece, so Steve won’t remember any of it. Not the gauntlet shattering, not the heated words, not the look of heartbreak on Tony Stark’s face as he yet again had to choose the greater good over his closest friend.

This Steve is so different from Earth-1219’s Steve that Strange is almost surprised by it. There’s much less of the warmth, and so much anger. So much war.

Steve won’t remember this actual moment, even if somehow the spell gets shattered in the future. No one can anticipate everything that will happen, no matter how hard Tony tries. Strange can tell Steve anything he wants to right now, and Steve won’t ever remember Strange saying it.

There’s so much he wants to. There’s so much Steve could do, if he understood. If he was made that way. But on this Earth, Steve Rogers is an immovable object that doesn’t realize the incursions are an unstoppable force.

At some point, the incursions will happen.

At some point, the Illuminati will have to make the decisions humanity can’t. They’ll have to make the hard plays no one else can. If history depicts them as monsters, so be it.

As long as their universe is safe, Strange doesn’t care about the mystical bill that will come due. He deserves to pay that price.

Somewhere out there is a world with a man with the face of the Avenger in front of him, a version of Steve Rogers that Strange could have so easily loved. A world that holds a different future that Strange could have learned to defend and protect as his very own. A world Strange may have to one day face and destroy with his very last breath.

He kind of feels like the price may have already been paid.

Strange leans in close and cups the cheek of this world’s Steve Rogers with one careful hand, and for a second he can see the other Steve, smiling at him, warm and open and free of all the stress of the fate of the world on his shoulders.

“This decision was harder than you’ll ever understand,” Strange tells Steve, and wipes his mind clean.


End file.
